


Circle The Drain

by smolppstitsucker



Series: i'm sorry if they told you that things would get better. [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung-centric, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28852746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolppstitsucker/pseuds/smolppstitsucker
Summary: "Scenarios where Yuta tells him that he's done with it, he's tired of all the sadness Doyoung keeps bringing into his life, a whole goddamn cloud of it, raining on his parade, every single time. Doyoung has had these thoughts manifest into nightmares and scare the sleep out of him. And now that it's ending, Doyoung is amazed at how different it is from all the possible endings he'd been preparing himself for. All the possible endings he'd been frightened of. All the possible endings that he'd have accepted better than this."(Or, Kim Doyoung and the growing pains.)
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Nakamoto Yuta, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Nakamoto Yuta
Series: i'm sorry if they told you that things would get better. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2159403
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	Circle The Drain

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, so this is a particularly sad one shot that should have remained in my drafts but made it out because I have to motivate myself to update my other fics, which I have planned out in my head but I'm refusing to write. 
> 
> Anyway, not too much hope here. But I hope you liked it. Come on, be sad with me.
> 
> tw for suicidal and depressive thoughts, anxiety, panic attacks, an implied eating disorder, and abusive parenthood.

Doyoung could never have imagined it would end like this. You know, with Yuta pressed against a wall, his and Sicheng's mouths slotted together, guttural moans echoing through the room and slight whispers of something very close to "i-love-you" slipped in when they parted to gasp and swallow in the air that surrounded them, forming a bubble that Doyoung could see through, but never get close enough to touch or penetrate. He could have never thought it would end like this, with Yuta cheating on him, breathing into Sicheng's neck, holding onto Sicheng for dear life, like he was drowning. He could never have imagined this, standing in a corner watching his own boyfriend being almost a step away from fucking someone else. It would have been a little erotic, he admits, if his heart weren't breaking.

Doyoung could never have imagined things would end like this. He admits, to himself, that he has thought about scenarios. Scenarios where Yuta finally gets tired of all the panic attacks and the crying and the shaking and the screaming. Scenarios where Doyoung slips into another anxiety attack and Yuta puts his hand on his shoulder and Doyoung bites off his fingers. Scenarios where Yuta tells him that he's done with it, he's tired of all the sadness Doyoung keeps bringing into his life, a whole goddamn cloud of it, raining on his parade, every single time. Doyoung has had these thoughts manifest into nightmares and scare the sleep out of him. And now that it's ending, Doyoung is amazed at how different it is from all the possible endings he'd been preparing himself for. All the possible endings he'd been frightened of. All the possible endings that he'd have accepted better than this.

Doyoung has been sad all his life. Or maybe it has been for the last five, seven, ten years. He doesn't remember. He remembers having a constant lump in his throat and he remembers feeling his heart clench at a sad song and clench tighter when it's a happy one. Doyoung remembers middle school, in this one hazy chunk of familiar faces and bad memories. He doesn't remember the good parts, but then he never does, out of anything. Doyoung doesn't even remember what happened in high school, and that's supposed to be the most memorable part of your life, but all he can do when someone asks what he did is tell them that he played volleyball, and that he had good grades. 

He remembers Yuta, though. He has spent a good chunk of his life loving Yuta. He remembers loving Yuta through middle school, and then high school, and he has loved Yuta in college. He loves Yuta now, because he can feel his ribs hurt in a weird way. He has spent so much of his time loving Yuta that he doesn't remember anything else. Or maybe he does, he just doesn't want to rummage through the bad parts in his brain. 

He remembers accidentally letting it slip a year ago that he's liked Yuta for a long, long while, and Yuta had stared at him, with an unreadable expression on his face, like the wheels in his brain were turning, and he had asked Doyoung a few minutes later out on a date. Doyoung had been so happy that he'd kissed Yuta right then, and Yuta's lips had been moist against his, and tasted like strawberry chapstick.

Maybe in a few days, all he would remember about Yuta would be the sad things, the biting on ice creams and kissing in a railway station and slipping into one trial room at the mall would fade into a blurry mess of nothing. The hugging under the tree they liked sitting under in high school, the first time they'd had sex and Doyoung had been ecstatic, almost like a little kid, would be replaced by Doyoung sitting on the floor repeatedly hitting himself and Yuta looking on with something akin to exhaustion and helplessness. Yeah, that's what would probably happen. The time Yuta had been jealous at the party when Taeyong was flirting with Doyoung would probably just be replaced by that one time at a club Doyoung had thrown up over Yuta's shirt, his favorite one, and Yuta had been so, so disappointed. Tired. Doyoung's drunk caveman brain had not been able to process much, but he'd been mumbling sorry against Yuta's chest, and Yuta had let out a sigh, and patted Doyoung's head. The time when Doyoung had baked a huge two tier cake for Yuta and Yuta had hugged him so tight that he could hear his heart beat in his chest, would be replaced by that one time Doyoung had yelled at Yuta after the latter had forgotten his birthday, and had hung out with Sicheng instead. All the happiness, sucked out slowly, and then carefully replaced with sadness. That's how things have always worked in Doyoung's head, that's how things have always been, anyway.

And he hears it, the i-love-you(s) slipped between their drawn breaths, and he thinks how Yuta had never said it back when it was him. Doyoung liked slipping it into conversations, almost as if he was making up for the lost time in his childhood when he couldn't say it to Yuta although his chest was bubbling with the words. But Yuta had never said it, not even during sex, and it had hurt Doyoung, but he'd assumed that Yuta just wasn't ready, not this, of all things, anyway. And he hears it now, how casually Yuta says it to Sicheng, and he feels his heart get smaller and smaller until it feels like it doesn't exist, until it feels like a huge, vacant space.

And as Sicheng whispers "i love you too", he slips out of the room wondering why Yuta did this to him, on purpose, when he could have done something else.

When Yuta texts him a "we need to talk" a few hours later, Doyoung is in his room, biting on ice cubes, something he hasn't done in three years, letting the shards hurt his throat, crying, legs drawn into a bundle, and he texts back an "okay". He remembers the things his mother had said, about belonging, about how he'd never belong, and how he'd thought he'd proved her wrong when he had been sleeping next to Yuta. _So fucking foolish, Kim Doyoung, why do you always end up like this_ , he thinks, and the ice cubes feel too cold against his palm, too cruel. He wonders why things always have to be like this when all he wants is happiness.

And six months later, Kim Doyoung finds himself in a tiny hospital room, alone, with a window that is too small to jump out of, dressed in a yellow-white hospital gown with slightly puffy sleeves and a tube in his neck. He thinks about how in six months, Yuta has yeeted himself out of his life, and managed to build a whole new one with Sicheng instead. Doyoung has never seen Yuta so happy, and he should be happy for Yuta, happy because he loves Yuta, he loves Yuta so fucking much, still, but all he feels is a dark pit of something evil expand from his stomach into his chest. It's always the 'why not me' in his head making him want to push Yuta against the wall and get into a fistfight with him. It's always violence, in his head. It's alright, it's not like he can get up from his bed.

With the musty sunlight against his chest, he keeps wondering, now, how he doesn't have anything, anything at all. A family that disowned him half a decade ago because he liked sucking cock, a boyfriend that he wore down so much he loved someone else, a body that's on the verge of giving out any moment. He remembers fishing through the test reports and thinking, God, why did it all have to be like this, why do I have to die this way, and its funny, because all his life, he's been one step short of killing himself. He'd never tried therapy, because it had been too expensive, and although the scholarship carried him through his lectures, it didn't pay for his food, or the other expenses. And he thinks that at this moment, that is pretty funny, because now he is strapped to a hospital bed he will probably die in, in a few days, and all the money is going for shitty medicines and cure systems that would never heal him, anyway.

There are no visitors, for Kim Doyoung, and the hospital room is yellow with the dirty sunlight, an occasional moth flying in, and he is bunched up in an awkward shape, wondering why it's him, like this, when it could have been anybody else. All he'd wanted in his life was a little bit of peace and an ounce of non-effervescent happiness. And now he's on a hospital bed, with a tube in his neck, in a billowing hospital gown that makes him feel small, small enough to shrink into a pile of tiny bones and disappear in the air.

He thinks about years, and years of trauma, thinks about his mother's foot against his chest as she repeatedly kicks him as he apologises like it's judgement day, thinks about punching himself, thinks about the fat in his thighs and cutting it in 10th grade, thinks about panic attacks and collapsing on floors, thinks about Yuta, and how many years of his life he has fucking wasted for that guy, thinks about Sicheng and Yuta walking around campus being a happy couple, thinks about his test results, thinks about himself, dying, all alone, on the hospital bed. 

_I'm so fucking alone_ , he thinks.

_I'm so fucking alone that I don't even have anyone to blame for all of what happened besides myself._

**Author's Note:**

> *slides away*


End file.
